Abstract

Extracted from text ... African Security Review 15.1 Institute for Security Studies
Benin: Under new management
Richard Cornwell*
In the middle of the 1970s there were few observers who would have predicted that Benin would
come to provide Africa with examples of peaceful political transition. Benin's ethno-regionally
fractured polity traditionally has pitched the south-east, south-west and north of the country
into a bitter rivalry for national political power. Throughout the 1960s the army had frequently
intervened to break the political deadlock created by civilian administrations, and in 1972 Mathieu
K?r?kou seized power and then sought to broaden his appeal to the militant student ..